As It Should Be by Derek Mahon

Context

“As It Should Be” is one of Mahon’s shorter, more disturbing poems. It deals with violence in rural Ireland, specifically the killing of an outsider, someone who does not belong. The poem appeared in Night-Crossing (1968), Mahon’s first collection, written during the early years of the Troubles in Northern Ireland. While the poem does not describe the Troubles directly, it captures a mentality that is deeply relevant to them: the idea that communities can close ranks, justify violence, and treat the elimination of an outsider as natural, even righteous. This poem appears on the 2027 Leaving Certificate prescribed poetry list.

Summary

A man is found dead in a ditch. He was an outsider, someone who did not fit in with the local community. The poem presents the community’s response: they see his death as appropriate, even inevitable. The landscape itself seems to absorb the violence without protest. The poem’s title, “As It Should Be,” is deeply ironic. Nothing about this death is as it should be, but the community treats it as though it were the natural order of things.

Analysis

The Opening: A Body in the Landscape

The poem begins with the dead man already present. There is no build-up, no drama of discovery. The body is simply there, “in a gaol” of the landscape. Mahon’s tone is deliberately flat, almost reportorial. He is not sensationalising the violence. He is presenting it as something the community has already processed and moved on from. That flatness is itself an indictment. The lack of shock tells you everything about how normalised this violence has become.

“We hunted him through the night” places the community as active participants. The pronoun “we” is unsettling. Mahon does not stand outside and point fingers. He places himself, or his speaker, inside the community that did this. That “we” is one of the most important single words in any Mahon poem on the course.

The Community’s Justification

The middle section of the poem reveals how the community rationalises the killing. The dead man was different. He did not belong. His strangeness was enough to make him a threat. Mahon captures the logic of exclusion with cold precision: the outsider is dangerous not because of anything he has done, but because of what he is. This is the logic of sectarianism, of tribalism, of any community that defines itself by who it keeps out.

The Landscape as Accomplice

Pay attention to how the natural world absorbs the violence. The ditches, fields, and sky do not react. There is no pathetic fallacy here, no storm to match the horror. The landscape simply continues. Mahon uses this silence to suggest complicity: the land itself seems to accept what has happened. If you are writing about Mahon’s treatment of landscape, this poem offers a very different picture from the beauty of “Day Trip to Donegal” or the emptiness of “Antarctica.” Here, the landscape is not indifferent. It is implicated.

The Title and Its Irony

“As It Should Be” is the community’s verdict, not Mahon’s. The title ventriloquises the voice of a group that believes violence against outsiders is natural, even correct. Mahon’s irony is quiet but devastating. He does not argue against this view directly. He simply presents it and lets you see how monstrous it is. This is showing rather than telling, and examiners reward you for explaining how it works.

Literary Devices

Irony: The title is the poem’s central ironic device. The phrase “as it should be” implies natural order and rightness, but the poem describes a killing. The gap between the title’s calm assurance and the poem’s content is where Mahon’s critique lives.

Understatement: The poem’s flat, controlled tone is a form of understatement. By refusing to dramatise the violence, Mahon makes it feel routine, which is more disturbing than any graphic description would be.

Imagery: The rural landscape, the ditch, the night hunt: these images root the poem in a specific physical world while carrying broader implications about how communities deal with those who are different.

Collective voice: The use of “we” implicates you in the community’s actions. Mahon does not allow you to stand comfortably outside and judge. You are drawn into the collective.

Mood

The mood is cold, controlled, and quietly menacing. There is no outrage on the surface, no raised voice. The horror comes from the calm with which the events are reported. It reads like a community that has done this before and sees no reason to feel troubled. That calm is what makes the poem so effective and so unsettling.

Themes

Violence and community: The poem examines how communities can justify violence against outsiders. The killing is not presented as an aberration but as something the community accepts as normal. This makes the poem relevant far beyond its Irish context.

The outsider: The dead man is killed for being different. Mahon does not specify what made him different, which broadens the poem’s reach. He could be a stranger, a foreigner, someone of a different religion or background. The vagueness is deliberate.

Complicity and silence: The landscape’s silence and the community’s lack of remorse suggest that violence thrives when no one speaks against it. The poem raises the question of what it means to belong to a community that does these things.

Northern Ireland and sectarianism: While the poem does not name the Troubles, it captures the tribal mentality that fuelled them. Be careful here: do not reduce the poem to a simple allegory about Northern Ireland. It speaks to something broader, but the historical context is worth mentioning.

Common Pitfalls

Missing the irony: If you read the title at face value, you will misunderstand the entire poem. The title is the community’s voice, not Mahon’s. Make this clear in your essay.

Over-explaining the Northern Ireland connection: The poem is not a direct commentary on a specific event. It captures a mindset. Reference the Troubles as context, but do not treat the poem as a news report.

Ignoring the “we”: The collective pronoun is one of the poem’s most important features. If you do not discuss who is speaking and why Mahon chose this perspective, your analysis is incomplete.

Rapid Revision Drills

1. Explain the irony of the poem’s title.
2. Why does Mahon use the collective “we” rather than “they”?
3. How does the landscape function in this poem?
4. Compare this poem’s treatment of community with the isolation in “Antarctica.”
5. What does this poem suggest about the relationship between violence and belonging?

Other Derek Mahon Poems

• Grandfather
• Day Trip to Donegal
• Ecclesiastes
• After the Titanic
• Antarctica
• A Disused Shed in Co. Wexford
• Rathlin
• The Chinese Restaurant in Portrush
• Kinsale

Conclusion

“As It Should Be” is a short poem that packs a significant punch. It gives you material on Mahon’s treatment of violence, community, landscape, and irony, all in a compact space. For the exam, it pairs well with “Ecclesiastes” (both deal with Northern Irish attitudes) and contrasts sharply with “Grandfather” or “Day Trip to Donegal.” If you are asked about Mahon’s darker side or his engagement with conflict, this is the poem to reach for.

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